MANDATORY TITLE INSURANCE FOR CULTURAL PROPERTY: A Solution for Claimants and Owners of Looted and Stolen Art?
| Author | Nathan, Johannes |
INTRODUCTION
'70 Years and Counting: The Final Opportunity?' was the title of a conference taking stock of the current handling of looted art in Europe, hosted by the UK Government through its Spoliation Advisory Panel and the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. The conference title reflects the increasing frustration shared by many in spite of more than two decades of debate, countless gatherings and numerous government and non-government initiatives. In his opening keynote, John Glen, then Minister for the Arts, Heritage and Tourism, even went so far as to ask how one might 'breathe new life' into these actions.
Given the current situation, the frustration is justified. A member of the audience briefly outlined his case, one of many: having researched a looted collection of c. 1,100 objects over a period of several years, he has so far identified c. 100 objects and found a solution for c. 60. If he continues at this pace, his work will last roughly one century. A better-known example is the so-called 'Task Force Schwabinger Kunstfund', founded in November 2013 with the aim of completing the provenance research on Cornelius Gurlitt's collection of about 1,400 objects within one year. An impressive team of experts and provenance researchers has since been at work. Today, many questions remain open and the completion of this colossal assignment is still far out of sight. (2)
In other words, while the victims' heirs, who often have only bare lists of looted objects (and sometimes not even that), frequently cannot trace or recover the property of their persecuted and often murdered ancestors, today's public and private owners of such objects often face similarly formidable obstacles when attempting to fully clarify the provenance of an item in their possession--and additionally risk that, after extensive research, they might have to restitute an object without being guilty of any wrongdoing.
Many smaller museums and private owners therefore still avoid provenance research, all the more so as it is usually complicated to arrange, time-consuming, potentially detrimental in outcome, and costly--for many such projects receive no external funding. To be sure, a large number of cases have been solved, particularly those involving valuable works. In spite of decades of research, however, the number of settled cases is minute in comparison with those which are unsolved--and above all in relation to the legion of cases of whose existence we are still entirely unaware.
In view of the many shortcomings of the present situation, an alternative approach should be sought.
AN 'INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL PROPERTY FUND'
The present paper calls for the introduction of a mandatory title insurance against legitimate ownership claims based on looting or theft. Comparable in some ways to motorcar or health insurance, this mandatory 'cultural property insurance' would apply to all appropriate goods whose value exceeds a defined threshold, be they in museums, in public or private collections, or in the trade. Given that looting and theft occurred not only in territories controlled by Germany between 1933 and 1945, the insurance would cover all legitimate claims of all periods and geographic areas. (3)
Thus the insurance would not only compensate claimants and indemnify today's owners of objects looted under Nazi rule, it would also cover similar crimes from other periods--such as extortion of indigenous art in Africa, the looting of archaeological sites in the Near East, or a 1950s theft of an...
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